


To Be Me

by dreamweavebeliever



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen, References to Homophobia, References to old fashion medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:39:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamweavebeliever/pseuds/dreamweavebeliever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buck talks to Ezra about his fears and his secrect...</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Me

**Author's Note:**

> My First work in the Magnificent 7 universe, just a short peice beta read for me by Mary McCool.

When Ezra first met the men who would change his life he was himself in full color, and regarded his mask as firmly in place as it ever was. The same mask he had worn for so long, even he couldn’t find the glued down edges any more. He had met them in a bar. His luck had turned a little and the ‘leader’ had noticed his con but rather than out him, and enrage the men he fought further, he had merely watched Ezra fight. 

A comment he had made then had colored something they saw in him, another paintbrush on the mask he wore. He didn’t mind. He could take the distain and the head shakes if it meant there was one less thing that they questioned. 

It had worked for a while before one noticed. It wasn’t who he had thought would cotton on. He had assumed that Vin’s sharp eyes or Josiah’s strange empathy would have picked it out long before the man who was currently leaning against the wall of his room. In fact, if he had been a betting man, he would have imagined JD more likely to see something in it, if only because the boy seemed to memorize things most of them missed. 

Buck, however, is someone he would have expected to hang him from the window of his room till his feet stopped twitching, rather than talk to him with what Ezra could only assume was compassion. He shook his head and ran his fingers though his dark auburn hair. What was he supposed to do with this?  
His hands shaking, Ezra thought back to the conversation minutes ago.  
\----  
It had been a fairly successful day in the saloon; a few hands of cards, but more than that, some pleasant company. 

One of the young men waiting for the stage further west had caught his eye. Ezra could admit he had enjoyed watching him; the curve of his lips, his body a little dirty from the road but still handsome in a fine shirt. It was his guilty pleasure, one he was very careful not to indulge in with the seven. Down that way lay madness. With a healer on payroll, especially, he would be insane to show off his own brand of sickness, where it could be pulled screaming and kicking into the burning light.   
The other six men were occupied with their own lives, however, and he felt safe enough to watch that young man as he came in, wet with rain, that fine shirt sticking to a fine body, and it was enough to make his mouth water. It didn’t go beyond looking of course and it never would. Aside from a few bad choices when thoroughly drunk; which had led to some kisses on lips he shouldn’t know, and one engagement while clothed rutting against the side of a saloon, he was as he had been his whole life, celibate to that line of madness. He had a few unsatisfying encounters with the fairer sex as well, just to try and prove he wasn’t … ill, but mostly he simply found it easier to sleep alone - to be alone.

Ezra shook away the dark thoughts and simply allowed himself to enjoy the money in his pocket and the fantasies in his head which he might drag out in the darkness of his room to find his own escape. As he lifted his hand to his door, however, he noticed it wasn’t locked and his throat tightened. He shifted the weight of his derringer, a familiar mass on his right wrist. His left hand slid one of his pistols free as his right opened the door. He slipped in, his back against the door, pistol ready. He scanned the room and saw in the moonlight coming through the window a familiar shape. 

“Mr. Wilmington, to what do I owe the pleasure at this … late hour?” He tried to sound light and calm and not let confusion, concern, or anger color it as each emotion splashed up behind the genial mask he wore. Buck shifted from his place on the wall by the window to look Ezra over. He looked a bit sheepish as he noticed Ezra tucking his pistol away. 

“Sorry fer’ startlin’ you. Jus’ thought, well, maybe we needed to have a talk.” Buck shifted and Ezra could see he was uncomfortable. Ezra inclined his head, indicating his willingness to talk, and gestured to the room’s one chair inviting Buck to sit. The man took the offer as Ezra sunk down onto his bed, folding his hands in his lap. He thought he would have to prompt Buck to speak the way the man was fidgeting with his hat. 

“Do you trust us, Ez?” The question when it came surprised Ezra enough that he could only blink at Buck for a few moments waiting for the punch line - the request for money, or some kind of strange half-baked plan. When Buck just continued to toy with the hat Ezra felt an odd twisting in his guts, though he couldn’t say why. 

“Of course, Mr. Wilmington, I have never been with men who I trusted more to have my back in a fight. You are all … good at what you do and rather noble aside…” Ezra eyed Buck trying to determine if he was drunk or perhaps had partaken in something more illicit, though as far as he knew, the brash, heartfelt gunslinger had never partaken of some of the world’s more damming substances. 

Buck, however, was far from being satisfied. He launched into his plan looking frustrated and running a hand through his sable hair. “Iffn ya’ trust us Ez, why you feel the need to hide what ya are?” He lifted his deep blue eyes peering into Ezra’s pale green. Ezra started to protest that these men did know him. They knew he was a gambler, a con man, and a cheat. They knew he had a fractious relationship with his mother, knew he kept his past his own, and actually Ezra could say they knew him better than anyone, save for himself. Before he could open his mouth, however, to say just that Buck continued and froze Ezra into silence.   
“You think any of us are really gonna think any different of ya jus’ cause ya like tha’ fellers?” Ezra tried to open his mouth to protest but he found his words robbed. His head was swimming and he thought it rather good that he was sitting on his bed as he really didn’t want to hit his head if his body decided to follow through with the fainting spell he seemed to be working toward. “Ah’m worried about ya, Ez. Can’t be healthy to deny yerself so much as you do. I saw ya earlier with the fancy lookin’ feller you were playing cards with, saw him talk to you after yer game … thought maybe finally ya were gonna get that knot in ya unwound and git some but … ya said, well … that ya didn’t suffer from that particular aliment and that you hoped that he was more careful in the future unless he wished to receive treatment for his own regrettable illness.’ Then it kinda … clicked.” 

Ezra felt his world grey out at the edges as he realized that Buck, wherever he had been, had heard the exchange between him and the other man in the corner of the saloon. The man had taken the initiative, having noticed Ezra’s appreciative looks, and propositioned him after they both had a few drinks in them. “Ya said ‘illness’ and now I know that could just be a result of yer fancy talk and schooling but … I remembered what Chris told me how ya didn’t wanna travel with no black doctor. Thing is, you were fine with the village people an those kids no matter their color … and I’ve seen ya deal with folk since then of every kind under tha’ rainbow with no trouble so … if it wasn’t his skin tone … maybe it was what he could do. Ya don’t have no issue with the rest uh’ us so it weren’t the killing part, but the fixing folks part. Ya were so tense every time he treated you … Ah remembered to something I learned back when ah was still livin’ … in tha’ brothel ‘bout what doctors did to some folks who were shown to be head sick … an’ how people thought lovin’ someone tha’ same gender as you was head sick.” Buck shrugged and looked at his hat.” Figure maybe at some point ya got found out and they … treated ya … hurt ya something fierce so you pull it all in - one more thing ta hide behind that mask ya insist on wearin’ all tha’ time.” Buck stood and moved toward Ezra whose hands were clenched on the sheets with a white knuckle grip; his world pitching and yawing more than a row boat caught in the waters of the Mississippi during a storm.” We wouldn’t do tha’ to ya, Ez, never. Yur one of us an’ I think that …sickness business is hogwash. Besides, love is love, plain and simple and Nate’ he’s nevah’ hurt a person like that. So when yer ready … we kin talk. Might even find Yer not the only one … oh, not me, I like mah ladies but … maybe yah aren’t so alone, um?” Buck squeezed his shoulder and saw himself out leaving Ezra to think.   
\----  
Now alone in his room, the sick, prickly cold feeling of the panic attack having passed, his head in his hands, Ezra wondered just what he was going to do; and if he was right about being able to trust the seven with this part of himself. He didn’t dwell on the possibility of not being alone. He wasn’t sure he wanted to speculate and face that one just yet, but the thought that maybe these men might watch his back, keep the bad element off him if he decided to, for once … try to be ... and to do. That thought filled the gambler’s mind as he stood up and looked out to the two being painted gold by the rising sun and thought “Maybe, just maybe, here is where I can be me.”


End file.
